


The Naturalist

by goodnightfern



Series: 2017 Supply Drops [4]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen, The Philosophers - Freeform, Wildlife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:22:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: There's nothing noble about ocelots.For wish #153, anon wanted a story of child spy training.





	The Naturalist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [piccadilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piccadilly/gifts).



> *whispers* hey anon, if you're into Child Spy Training, I sure hope you've read [The Enemy of my Enemy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8777215/chapters/20120095) because you bet was I inspired by the tale of Baby Adam going through Philosopher's training with this.

Adam is given one hour with the book.

It’s not like most of his other books. There are 37 full-color plates. He reads in glances to give him time to properly take them in. Walruses in the Arctic. Mountain goats in the Siberian steppes. Giraffes on the savannah. Ocelots in the jungle. Their spots blend in with the dappled light as they lounge on a tree branch.

Adam cannot destroy the book. He cannot tear out the page and fold it up and slip it - where? They would find it even if he swallowed it.

The woman takes away the book at the end of the hour. He spends the next three hours in Russian. His Cyrillic handwriting is already perfect. After that is Mandarin. Adam’s not perfect at that yet.

Before dinner the woman asks him about the book. He recites it back to her. Not a missed word.

One slip.

“I don’t recall ocelots being described as noble,” she says. “Shall we double check?”

She opens the book. The ocelots are upside-down.

It does not say that ocelots are noble. Adam gets to see it for himself. He didn’t say they were noble.

Yes, he did.

“What makes ocelots noble to you?”

These are the questions that give Adam trouble. To him? It was his word, wasn’t it? He did not watch his words. Not a word of his mouth isn’t watched, but this one. _Noble._

Nobles are inbred pigs feeding on the proletariat. Nobles inherit legacies of leadership. Americans say nobles are a dubious cultural artifact, useless in the new era.

Someone else used that word. Adam repeated it and now Adam will not be getting dinner. The growls at night will be much louder and much, much closer.

Who said it first? A more poetic mind than he has. A lily of day is fairer in May - no.

Noble. Noble. Noble.

She’s been waiting too long.

“The noble mind is calm and steady,” he tells her. That’s from Confucius. He remembered that book perfectly. “The ocelot sleeps during the day. It has learned that while the other animals work in daylight, it’s better to wait till night to catch them. Their patience wins in the end.”

“Their nocturnal patterns mean they’re patient?”

“Yes. Because they have to wait.”

“Do they wait, or do they sleep?”

“Both. They chose to sleep during the day. Ocelots are predators, so it’s safe for them. A clever tactic to take their prey unseen in the dark.”

“And is cleverness noble?”

Is it?

He’s waited too long.

No, this isn’t right. Adam got it all wrong.

Ocelot’s aren’t clever because they’re animals. Animals are not men, they do only what nature tells them to do. All instinct with no tactics.

“No.”

“Then what makes ocelots noble?”

“The word noble means little beyond the weight it carries in parlance,” he starts. “Nobles may be disposed of and created anew at the will of the people. Kings only love words, not the reality of the weight behind them.” Paraphrasing is a sign of comprehension. “Nature gave them their camouflage. Evolution adjusted their circadian rhythms. They don't know their own cleverness, they only perform the role given to them. A king with a crown suddenly placed upon his head may think himself a ruler, but the unseen hand guides nature as well as politics.”

This is good. Adam will be getting dinner now.

The truth is, in the court of the games humans play, the ocelot wouldn’t be a noble. The ocelot would be a spy. But as he said, the word means nothing. It is Adam who aspires to be the ocelot, as the peasant might aspire to be the king. This is the third truth, hidden behind his words, and it’s what the woman wants to hear.

It’s a good story. Adam slipped up, but recovered well. He is infinitely adaptable after all.

Right?

She doesn’t look like she believes him.

He took too long. He wasn’t convincing. Tried to ply her, show off that he’s done his reading.

“Well put, Adam. But tell me. Why did you choose to describe the ocelot - out of all the animals in this book - as noble?”

He just told her. Didn’t he?

There are other animals with similar tactics. And plenty of prey animals are nocturnal.

But the ocelot is -

“Do you like ocelots?”

What kind of a question is that? Adam is Adam. Adam has no personal preference. Does she want him to like ocelots? He cannot prod at her like he can with the other children. Adults are still incomprehensible to his mind. He can only rely on their words. The body language they taught him to analyze. Adam is always a good boy to them.

“Adam? Why do you like ocelots?”

“Because…” He has to say something. “They’d be good spies?”

“Oh? I wonder if we’re keeping any baby ocelots here.” She’s smiling. It means Adam is not getting dinner tonight. “Have you seen any kittens here?”

No. He hasn’t.

Ocelots would not make good spies. They are not humans. Adam is a liar, Adam makes up fantasies, Adam made a world of talking ocelots that walk on their feet like men.

“An ocelot could be trained like a dog,” he says stubbornly. “If the wild was tamed out of them. They could be domesticated and walked on leashes and sent into places no human could enter.”

“Could they?”

He made his story. He must stick to it. “Anything is possible if man puts his mind to it. And the mind is the most powerful weapon in the world.”

It works. Adam gets dinner. He goes to bed and lounges on the tree branch with the ocelots while the growls scrabble fruitlessly below. In the morning he goes to new, different classes. They say he’s demonstrated unexpected creativity for his age. They let him listen to the radio stories and say he will learn to write his own someday.

Adam will write them a story about an ocelot that walks and talks like a man. He blends into the dappled light beneath the leaves and he always, _always_ , watches his words.


End file.
